


a close shave

by newsbypostcard



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Facial Shaving, Intimacy, Knives, M/M, Pining, Shaving, Smoking, Trust, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 03:01:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11027220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newsbypostcard/pseuds/newsbypostcard
Summary: Steve angles the blade carefully against Bucky's skin, and Bucky doesn't flinch; he doesn't even blink.





	a close shave

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Чистое бритьё](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15361281) by [fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018/pseuds/fandom_Starbucks_Roles_TwoSexyMen_2018)



> They shave each other unrealistically with a knife and then don't have sex. It's great, though, I promise.

  


The hardest thing about being on the front is different for them both. For Bucky -- Steve knows -- it's living in violence. It's getting up, loading your rifle, and knowing that your job for the day is to be the last man standing. It's knowing, after tallying however many kills -- after taking responsibility for lives in a way that means they end -- you then are forced to look your allies in the face and admit to your sins.

It's that you still, after that, have to clean your gun. The blood on your hands gets masked with gun oil. In the end they don't feel that different. That's the hardest thing for Bucky to bear.

For Steve, it's watching it happen. It's ordering it into being. It's watching the light in Bucky's eyes deaden a little more every day and not being able to do a damn thing about it. It's knowing that this is necessary. It's doubting it, suddenly. It's ordering it anyway, day after goddamned day. 

It's congratulating Bucky for the actions that are killing his spirit. It's apologizing, desperately, in the dead of the night. It's knowing Bucky heard him and getting nothing in reply.

It's the fact that Bucky doesn't even blame him for it, even though he should.

It's the way Steve tries to cover with a joke when Bucky comes back solemn -- when those steady, stable hands disassemble his rifle, one part at a time. When his fingers turn to filth, covered in oil and the phantoms of the day, and Steve looks up and gives a smart remark. He does it because he can't reach out, and maybe _that's_ the hardest part -- that there's no warmth he can offer. There's no shelter from this storm. The only way out is the way ahead, and so he sends Bucky forward, again and again. 

The further they push against this front, the sooner it is they'll be able to go _home_.

Bucky doesn't believe it. That part's hard, too.

Steve thinks they'll find solace in each other one day, the way that they used to, if they can only get _out._ Other times he's sure that they won't. He thinks about it anyway, that fire in Bucky's eyes, as though reigniting it might be possible. As though Bucky'd let him try.

Bucky doesn't like Steve to touch him these days. Steve can see why. He'd always had an eye to social acceptability; no different on the front. He's trying to survive; to what end temptation? Why recreate those fervid nights when the only sounds left were wet and harsh?

Steve misses it, and misses him. Bucky's with him but he's not. Some days, when Steve's feeling particularly sorry, he watches Bucky move around the camp and remembers with his eyes wide open: scent and sensation, and the fall of breaking sighs.

Today is one of those days. He suspects that Bucky knows. It's been two days of pushing hard, chased to it by an aggressive German line. They haven't had time to rest, barely had time to eat. Steve's now sitting down for the first time in a day, but Bucky's still standing, thumbing with displeasure at a shattered razor. 

Bucky's letting him look. Steve knows that much.

"How?" Bucky mutters, holding the stick of it aloft.

"I threw you up against that tree," Steve says, idle. He pulls his boot up against his leg so he can pretend to be busy. "Time with the tank. Probably broke then."

"Oh, yeah."

"Sorry about that. Use mine. It's in my sack."

Silence. Steve looks up to see Bucky standing, hand hard against his hip. He's looking oddly to the display on the ground in front of him: a broken razor; a combat knife; a hunting knife taken from Hydra. Steve looks from the canvas and then up at him; and then, slowly, Bucky turns to look at Steve.

"Yours is probably broken too," Bucky says, "way you fell. Taking Morita to the ground like that. We might need masks tomorrow." Hydra's tried to gas them out before. It is possible. "Maybe we oughta do this the old-fashioned way."

Steve frowns as Bucky stoops. In the space of three steps, Bucky's pressed the handle of the hunting knife into the palm of Steve's hand.

Steve catches his eye and stares. They both do. Then Bucky moves away to stack knapsacks by a tree. He sits down on top of them, leaning against the trunk, and lights one of their few remaining cigarettes with a match struck against the bark. 

He looks right at Steve the whole time he smokes it, eyes lidded, blinking slow.

Minutes pass. The cigarette burns down. The knife's wooden handle grows warm in Steve's hand. Orange embers coax him into action and he rolls, finally, to his feet. He pulls off his jacket and peels the uniform off his shoulders, ties its sleeves around his hips. It's a little cold for an undershirt only, but he wants his arms unencumbered for this. He wants to hold as steady as he's able. He wants to be able to hold Bucky's jaw in place without obstruction if he's going to drag a blade across his jaw. 

He steps slowly forward, balancing casual with clear intention, and Bucky takes a slow pull from his canteen, neck craning, bare and exposed. He pours a little water into a hand next and slaps it on his own jowls, running his palm against his throat. Steve watches every motion, tracking the way his thumb trails off his chin as he tilts his face to Steve. 

He takes note of every increment Bucky leans when Steve drags his fingers to his jaw; when he maneuvers him into position, trusting that Bucky's washed the knife since he hawked it. He must have. He's meticulous with this kind of thing. 

Steve angles the blade carefully, delicately, against his skin. 

He tests the pressure. Bucky doesn't flinch, he doesn't blink; he holds Steve's gaze in perfect trust. His eyes are alight with the burn of adrenaline as Steve takes him into his care, and that's it, that's --

The first scrape of the knife is slow and smooth.

Bucky shuts his eyes as the blade pulls away.

Steve wipes it on the thigh of his uniform and starts back in, steady and sombre. They know they're not alone. Morita's laugh, heady and infectious, echoes over to them from not far away. Steve's noticed the way Dum-Dum stares when they get looking at each other, too; he's sure he's watching now. Steve's pretty sure he's not gonna say anything about it, and he can't find it in him to be self-conscious.

Even Bucky is still in the face of it. Another easy stroke. Beautiful. Steve glances his thumb over Bucky's shaven skin, amazed at his own work. Bucky licks his lips in the midst of a pause, his gaze flitting down to the curve of Steve's mouth. Steve tilts Bucky's jaw; angles soft with ready ease. 

Now that he's started, he knows what comes next. They move in silence -- shave, clean, adjust, shave. He gets distracted once, eyes moving from his jaw to meet Bucky's eye. There's a nick; Bucky hisses, and Steve does too, swiping at the blood with an impatient thumb. He mutters an apology that Bucky disregards. "That'll be rough," Steve says when he's done, fingers tapping at a patch of burn where he'd pulled a little wrong. But Bucky only looks up where Steve stands over him and takes the blade gentle, careful from his hand.

He blinks up at him, slow.

Steve blinks right back.

Then Bucky stands, nodding down. He wants Steve to sit. Steve runs a hand over his own jaw with pleasant surprise; he keeps forgetting he even has growth until something reminds him.

There's a pause. The ground shifts. There's an edge of steel in Bucky's eyes as he waits. Steve feels weight pull in his groin, his throat, the tips of his fingers, and there's something that he wants -- it's this, it's not this. 

He sits down anyway. Bucky tenses the blade between his teeth, then pours water from his canteen. He rubs his clammy hands against Steve's face, starting rough and growing gentle. His thumb moves over Steve's cheekbone and it makes Steve shiver -- the intimacy of it. It's funny how steady Steve was with the blade but now that it's in Bucky's hand, it's like he's turned electric. Hot pins prick at his spine, between his shoulders first, then right down at its base. 

Bucky takes the knife back into his hand and stands over Steve to make him feel small again. It works. Bucky knows it. His gaze is open, dark but clear, and he looks ten years younger -- unspoiled by war. 

He stands over Steve and takes his jaw in hand. Steve holds his eye. There's not a sound in the woods. Bucky's so close Steve can feel his warmth against his arms. 

Bucky positions blunt steel against his jaw and pulls it across.

Steve doesn't move. He doesn't breathe. When the blade drags away, painless, bloodless, air fills his lungs just a little too flurried. "Steady," Bucky mutters, voice turning like gravel, and all Steve can do is hold Bucky's gaze. 

Another broad scrape. A build, a release. Steve feels his throat go tight and that just won't do. Even worse, Bucky sees it; he brushes a thumb over the jut of his adam's apple, and that only makes things worse. 

"Breathe," Bucky tells him. Now here they are: fully clothed in a foreign wood, Steve falling apart at Bucky's hands. A year and a half of destroying themselves and together, finally, they've found a reprieve. 

Steve's spoiled with touch, he's overwhelmed. Bucky stands tall and waits for him. After a while, Steve blinks himself still. Bucky, softly, tilts Steve's head. Steve exhales with the drag of the blade, slow and careful with his neck lain exposed.

It's as though, along with stubble, Bucky peels away a layer of tension with every stroke. He wipes the blade on his leg as Steve had done and takes his sweet time -- assessing, waiting, taking intimate care. Bucky tests angle and pressure to be sure skin won't break, and Steve's breath evens out with every pull. Bucky's focused, so focused on him. He's safe here. They both are. If it wasn't for the way Bucky swallowed so hard, Steve would think he could be doing anything -- cleaning or disassembling his gun.

They both know what the other's trying to say. It's an apology in two acts: Bucky, for leaving him; Steve, for pushing him there. But here, they are present -- a homecoming of sorts, or the best they can do.

Bucky finishes. His shoulders relax, blade moving away from Steve's face. Steve exhales, cathartic. It's hardly release but it does fill a void. He has missed this, he already does; his mouth has gone dry now that Bucky's withdrawn. He licks his lips, parting them, as his eyes track his form, and Bucky's hand reaches out as though drawn to the gesture. 

He thumbs at Steve's lip -- pressure, then glancing.

"Thank you," Steve murmurs, when his hand falls away.

Bucky blinks down at him and almost smiles. "Anytime," he says. Then he looks deep into the trees and steps slowly back. It's like cold slams back in; Steve suddenly feels the evening. "It's important to get a close shave. Only way to get a seal on those masks."

Steve nods and tries to blink himself back to reality. Switzerland. At war. "And with our broken razors…"

"Who knows when we'll restock?" Bucky shrugs and looks away. He twirls the blade between his fingers -- a distraction, yet thrilling. "Might have to do this again."

"Damn the luck."

"Yeah," he agrees, and leaves Steve to stew.

  


  


When he trusts himself to move again, Steve wastes no time in digging through his things and cracking his razor under his boot.

Bucky doesn't watch him do it, but Steve's pretty sure he still sees him smile.

  



End file.
